


Eloquence

by Juceisloose



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman: The Telltale Series (Video Game)
Genre: First Kiss, First Love, Juce, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-19
Updated: 2018-05-19
Packaged: 2019-05-08 23:29:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14704737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Juceisloose/pseuds/Juceisloose
Summary: Around John, Bruce loses his eloquence. It's time for him to find words again.





	Eloquence

__

  
The first time he lost eloquence, when Bruce went looking for John, he was not in his shack.

He knew this because, when he entered, evidence of recent life lingered over everything he saw – the bedsheets were crumpled, clean clothes were strewn inconsiderately, some lolling out his drawers, one of the photographs Bruce had seen last time he’d entered was askew, and there was a still-warm cup of coffee next to the bed, and a cup next to it with a fleck of mould on the scratched plastic bottom – but no John. Venturing deeper, he saw some of the beers from Bane’s box were missing. No, not missing: the empty bottles were propped on his Arkham wheelchair, condensation slicking the sides, fresh and cold. Picking one up, he saw a lipstick stain on the lip, and his stomach suddenly cramped uneasily, but he didn’t know why.

It was evident John had not expected him to enter his shack, his tiny home inside home – his bedroom, Bruce monitored, decorated thoroughly to resemble his chaotic personality streak well. A doll, a limp, handmade one with a business suit and large, ghastly button eyes glared at him soullessly from John’s pressed pillow, and, when he picked it up and inspected it closely, with tender consideration for intricate detail, he realised it was him. It smelt faintly like John, like he’d pressed it against him, enveloping it in his musk. The thought of John cradling a doll of him shot inexplicable shivers over and under his spine. Had John hidden it the one other time he’d entered this place, or made it afterwards?

The question that seemed most prominent was if he had a Harley one, too, and what exactly he did to this doll of his crush.

The smell of John, musky and as familiar as the smell of Alfred’s beloved apple pies Bruce had always secretly loathed, departed as soon as he stepped out the shack, overlapped by the stomach-souring odour of something sharp and dank. Old Five Points was obviously superannuated, worn and loved past use, and sometimes, when it rained, he felt the droplets seep through the flimsy wood overhead and flourish a new blotch of mould somewhere, complimenting the grimy rats he sometimes fed spare scraps of food to when he had nothing to do and no one to talk to. Absentmindedly, he did just that, fishing out a packet of snacking peanuts and dotting them precariously near where he could see the tip of a bubblegum-pink nose, connected to a bristly strip of grey.

Bane was industriously pummelling his punching bag, just like he always did, robotically and religiously. Bruce wondered how his knuckles hadn’t eroded to blood and shredded skin, just from the repeated, and never gentle, contact of said knuckles and the firm punching bag perpetually exerting the swell of muscles that unnaturally constructed his biceps. He considered going up to him and asking him where John was outright, just to save himself the time and effort of searching like a dopey detective, but it didn’t take long to talk himself out of it. It wasn’t worth the trouble; Bane was relentless when disturbed, and that was _with_ beer. Turning on his heel, Bruce tried to think of where John might be if not outside Old Five Points, and abruptly he felt very ill.

He could acutely remember the last time he’d been ill – properly ill, with shivers and chills and nausea and migraines – and that had been a year ago, some time late in the year when stomach viruses were slyly holding on to every door handle, inevitably caught. Alfred had cared for him like he’d been a boy again. He’d gotten him dry toast, water and a bucket for throwing up in, and he’d braved the task of cleaning the bucket whenever things did come up, and replacing his water routinely. He remembered being so nauseous sitting up had made him empty his stomach every time, and the simple task of rolling over had made him feel clammy and uncomfortable. He felt similar then. He tasted bile.

And he thought, why? But then he concluded it didn’t matter. Not yet. He wouldn’t, and couldn’t, let it. He just needed to find John – find John, and ease the nausea pawing slick icy fingers across the length of his spine. So he bit down on his tongue, hard enough to taste blood as his canines made incisions, and let that pain sharpen him and narrow his mind to his ‘mission’, like the vision narrows when you stare at one thing long enough.

He was outside Harley’s office door before he registered he’d moved. She was inside; he could feel it. He could feel her tangible, raw, power-dominant energy, sizzling like electricity within close proximity, and he could practically taste it, sharp and bitter on his tongue – conveniently, two adjectives he’d use flawlessly to describe her astringent personality in itself. And he could hear her laugh, too, when he pressed his ear against the slab of wood that formed the weakened door. He’d always thought she had a strange laugh, almost as strange as John’s, and it unsettled him just as acutely. It was more unsettling when their laughs melted together, which they did then.

Both of them were giggling. Inside Harley’s office. And Bruce was unsure why it felt like someone had suddenly fisted his intestines and wrenched, but he abruptly felt the urge to hit something, or someone: preferably someone. The thought of replacing her makeup-painted black eye with a real one, leaving the flesh tender and discoloured, marking his revulsion on her, savagely gnawed him until his hands trembled. And he might have done it, too, stormed inelegantly into her office and – well, he didn’t know what, but if Batman was a separate entity he’d scowl at him with highlighted intensity the entire process – but he heard someone clear their throat, and turned unceremoniously, snapped like the recoil of an elastic band from his grim predatory urges. One of Harley’s henchmen he didn’t recognise, because they all tactically looked the same to him, the only distinguishing part of him being a scar slashed over his eyelid, opened the door after leaning over, close enough Bruce could feel his heat. He smelt like metal and cigarettes. Bruce wondered how much time he spent in a day holding a gun to smell like metal, and then sentenced him to Hell within the same breath; he wasn’t ready to face them yet.

The laughter trailed off, which was nearly as unsettling as the laughter in itself.

When he entered, after some encouragement from Harley, he saw Harley was sat at her desk, her feet up, her lithe fingers caressing the bat sprawled over her lap she kept propped on display, the wood lovingly garnished with expensive, rich paint. She flicked her eyes up to him, but it was John, who was sat in front of her desk, who angled towards him with the purpose of communication.

“Buddy!” he exclaimed with feverish eyes like polished marbles deep set in his face, and chuckled as he cast Harley a sideways glance. “Me and Harley were just... talking.” His voice lowered mystically. “You know, like you said over coffee?”

A flitter of irritation marred Harley’s face, and her eyebrows flung to her hairline. But she said nothing. Bruce had an inexplicable and rather appalling urge to rip her hair out. He wanted to see her reaction.

“Wanted to see me, Mr. Moneybags?” Harley was already rising from her chair.

“No.” Bruce didn’t even look at her. Meditatively, he secured eye contact with John. “Can we talk?”

Harley sank down. Thinly veiled anger slashed through her eyes, and tension lined every cord of muscle inside her body. He should have cared more, but he found he didn’t care at all.

John agreed dutifully, and followed him outside with a deceivingly giddy sway of his arms, like blades of grass trapped inside July breeze. But the calm deception, with Bruce’s trained eye, convinced him little that John was what he was portraying himself to be. For example, his body posture, and the tautness of him, suggested a negative energy was stored inside John’s coiling soul like mildewy leftovers. When he turned to face him, the flashy lustre in his eyes was gone, and his eyebrows were crooked, one crawling up his face. Was he in a bad mood because he’d dragged him from Harley? He once again felt the urge to hit her. It was inappropriate and indescribable, but he didn’t even know if he regretted feeling it. “What do you need to talk about, buddy?”

Bruce deliberated that for a while. That was the five star question. He realised, as he hunted for an answer and bled short of ideas, he didn’t know himself. He’d just needed to see him: his arrogantly slashed eyebrows, his pasty skin that looked soft up close in places, his strong jawline and his squared off chin, his eyes and his hair with hues that reminded him of summer grass he could almost smell, his willowy body clad by a random flare of colours he’d grown to find comforting. And now he was in front of him, and all of that was sinking in like water into a sponge, he found himself gaping ineloquently around words, chewed up and incoherent in his mouth, memories of things he could have said.

He wondered when John had become a comforting thing to him. Was it when he’d entered The Pact and found himself in a savage throng of strangers, criminals, and John had been the one person inside it he could trust wholeheartedly? Somehow, ‘trust’ and ‘The Pact’ were words that sounded wrong when associated with John and comfort. It was something else.

“Buddy. Erm – are you okay?”

“Nothing,” Bruce finally answered, succumbing to the pitiful urge to run. He, Bruce Wayne, _The Batman,_ had never run. “Nothing at all.”

_What’s happening to me?_

***

The second time Bruce surrendered to ineloquence, John saved him, and he wished he could say it was pride that made him feel like he was choking on a chunk too hard to swallow – but it wasn’t.

When it happened, he could hear Harley, the tendrils of her on-and-off voice slinking around him like a safety harness, sharpening him to one thought – _I have to find her before she creates a blood bath._ Her cries, sometimes blurred around the edges with their distance apart, were laced with gentle maliciousness, starting sugary sweet and then trickling into something more tender-bitter, like biting into a sour sweet with a sweet shell. She was good with words, and knew how exactly to ploy them, and he remembered she was – had been – a psychiatrist. He supposed her being good with words was part of what she’d been paid for. He tracked her voice, deftly guiding himself between awry GCPD trucks, and, when he steered sharply to the left, her voice grew closer. The air smelt like gunfire smoke, city pollution and metal, and it, and his constant movement, made him feel suddenly exhausted and uncomfortable. He stopped, his hand braced against a truck, to peer around the vehicle, and–

And then he heard it.

“Bruce, get down!”

Bruce started to turn, but something slammed into him from the side, tackling him to the ground ungracefully. Pain thrummed over his back, his scraped elbows, the back of his head and his forehead, which had been knocked by something. His first thought was _I’m being attacked,_ and his entire body locked, pulling taut; if he was a dog, his lips would have pulled back from his teeth, and he’d be snarling. But he wasn’t a dog, and the streak of colour that was sprawled over him was spluttering indignantly in a grumble that was familiar, so Bruce found himself regretting hitting his attacker in the nose, and got to work with spitting tufts of hair out his mouth.

John lifted his head over his. He had his hands clamped over his nose. His forehead was red. That explained the licks of pain tickling his. “Ow, buddy,” he murmured miserably. “There was no need to get physical.”

“I-” Bruce took a moment to get his breath back. His ears were ringing, like a gunshot had been fired in close proximity. When his hearing started to clear, he could still hear the _pings_ of littering bullets ricocheting off vehicles listlessly. “I thought you were attacking me,” he finished, and realised how lame that sounded.

John garbled something behind his hand, and pointed to something behind Bruce.

Bruce craned his head, and saw a bullet embedded in the wall, directly where Bruce had once been standing. A tickle of vigilance lit his nerves, but he could see the Agent that had fired was dead, his skull crumpled inwards by a weapon – Harley’s weapon. So he just looked at him; looked meekly at the man who had saved his life, not for the first time.

It suddenly struck him how close they were. He was close enough to see the way refracting light danced in John’s eyes. He was close enough to see a very tiny scar on the bridge of his nose, like he’d accidently cut himself with his nail or something, a blemishing nick of distended skin. He was close enough to smell his breath, which pleasantly enough smelt like peppermint tea. Bruce couldn’t recall seeing him drink peppermint tea, but it seemed like something John would drink: a beverage with a sweet twist. His skin smelt unique, and Bruce could compare it to nothing; he did not smell like sweat, but the pungent deodorant he was wearing would mask that anyway. He didn’t seem like the type of guy to wear deodorant. Absentmindedly, Bruce found himself snuggling closer to the clean, distinguishingly male scent, but it did nothing to calm his stomach. His heart felt alive. He was reminded of a powerful, predatory bird trying to disintegrate its cage with its slender wings.

His voice sounded quiet and scratchy when it scaled his throat and climbed clumsily over his tongue – pathetic. Why hadn’t John moved? “How’s the nose?”

John gurgled. His hands barely covered his pout.

Bruce reached up, ignoring the way electricity darted up the veins of his wrists when he touched his. He’d read about tingles when touching the skin of another, the skin of someone you’re... attracted to, and called them examples of hyperboles in fiction. But those tingles were real now, starting at his fingertips and ending in his stomach, which stirred restlessly like gloopy, mixed soup. He ignored them, but they were pestilence, gnawing at the very edges of his mind.

He lowered John’s hands. John didn’t do much to protest, but his miserable demeanour etched deeper into his visage. His nose was bloody, but it wasn’t broken, and the bleeding had almost stopped on its own. He would get away with mild bruising, if he bruised at all.

“How bad is it?” John asked grudgingly, his voice heavy with apprehension and blocked up with the blood in his nose. He didn’t remove his wrists from his hands, though Bruce half expected him to chide him for being physical. “Is my modelling career over?”

“Ha-ha,” retorted Bruce flatly. “It isn’t broken. I doubt it’ll even bruise.”

John sighed. “You ruined a girl’s pretty face.”

“I’m sorry, John.” Bruce lifted his sleeve, and supportively wiped the blood from his face as much as he could, but it had faintly stained his face in most places, just another glimmer of chaos built over the rest. John just watched him, and Bruce abruptly felt that same sensation again: his heart slamming against his spine, adrenaline curdling everywhere. “There,” he whispered. It was supposed to come out as a mumble at the least.

The tension he could taste, and his motor skills, and his word cycle, ground very nimbly to a halt – ineloquence and physical numbness burst forward, like a flourishing flower. John was unhelpfully wordless (which was unlike him), and his eyes moved sometimes like they were sloping over every slant of his face ponderingly. John’s biceps were thin when he made the subconscious decision that felt right at the time to wrap his hands around them, but that was John – scrawny, inbuilt John. But his weight didn’t matter. Not then. Because he wanted him to–

There was a loud _bang_. In the corner of his vision, he saw a cloud of flames billow artistically from something, climbing in licks of colour towards the sky. He realised it was a truck, and, from the stricken expression on John’s face, it was his.

“That was my _ride_!”

The moment was torn. John darted despairingly towards his truck, leaving Bruce on the ground on his own, flustered and ashamed.

His stoic expression was easy to school back into place, but the knowledge that more agents than he’d originally planned had died while he played teenage-lovebird instead of adult-hero was not a pill that was as easy to swallow.

He vowed nothing like that would happen again.

***

It happened again. He hadn’t truly suspected otherwise. He was stricken with something, a peculiar sensation he’d never experienced for another person before. He was not familiar, or comfortable, with feeling something he didn’t know through and through. He went to work, he fought criminals – nothing new. Bruce Wayne was predictable and monotonous, and Batman was a planner. Both usually never found themselves in a position where they were helpless and naive.

John and Bruce had decided to pass some time together. Harley was in a bad mood, so even John agreed it wasn’t worth lingering around her, and they’d both agreed – well, John had suggested, and Bruce had just stared at him but followed him regardless – to play cards in John’s shack over a fold-out table usually used for eating dinner on the sofa for the sake of watching TV, both with a responsible amount of beer, one bottle each, stood dripping next to their arms.

John was in his wheelchair, which Bruce was slowly starting to find amusing; Bruce was in a hard wooden chair that was less amusing, the hard wood grinding into his back, which was still faintly bruised from when he’d been slammed onto the ground like a wrestler. He was shuffling the cards, his hair falling forwards into his eyes. Bruce longed to push it back so ferociously it hurt. “What’s your secret?”

Bruce snapped out of his reverie. “What?”

“You’ve won every game so far,” John observed, gesturing vaguely at the deluge of coins next to Bruce’s arm – Bruce’s coins. John had insisted on adding some money in himself, but Bruce had argued that he was a billionaire and John was not, and mentally added John’s money was probably stolen. John had protested it wasn’t a real gamble without both parties adding their share of coins, but he’d let it go regardless. “Are you cheating?” he asked with no weight, and plastered a faux pout on his lips.

“No,” Bruce replied, which was the truth. He attempted to give John a handful of the coins, but they were batted away. He rolled his eyes so hard they hurt and added, “You were the one trying to look at my cards.”

John shrugged unabashedly. “It’s a tactic,” he told him educationally, and took a deep sip of his beer. He slammed the bottle down and boyishly wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “You can’t win without tactics.”

“Looking at someone else’s card isn’t a tactic,” Bruce argued tiredly, scooping up the seven cards that were dished to him. “It’s just cheating.”

John raised one of his eyebrows at him.

“Look. We’re playing A Three and a Four, aren’t we?” Bruce flushed out his cards so he was holding them like a fan. He didn’t look at them. “The whole point is getting three cards that are together and are in the same group, like 2, 3 and 4 of diamonds, and another four cards with the same pattern.” He spread his cards over the desk in front of him as John gnawed peanuts. “See? I already have two that are together, a three and a four of spades, so I can put them together at the start of my pile and wait for a two or a five, or both to create a Four. But I also have a three of hearts and a three of diamonds, which makes a Three, because they’re all the same number. Instead of discarding the four of spades I have, I can wait to see how quickly I get the two and the five of spades. This way, I have two ways I can win with the three of spades I have. I have a backup plan. I have numerous options. When my cards thin down, I’ll have to choose one of the options, but until then I can leave the options open.”

“Oh,” said John, who leant closer, rapt. “So you win by having a Plan B?”

Bruce supposed that was how he always won – not just card games, but against villains in crime-fighting. He always had an ulterior plan in case it was needed. “Partly. But it’s also sheer luck. If my luck is bad, all the cards I need will be at the bottom of the pile, or you’ll have my cards.”

John leaned back. “I see,” he murmured, and thumbed his cards. “Strategy.”

“Tactics,” Bruce confirmed. “Real tactics. No cheating needed.”

John scooped up all the cards and shuffled again, an unexpected display of fairness. “Thanks for the tip, buddy! Maybe now I’ll stop losing to Willy every other Sunday.”

“How do you lose to a drunk man?” Bruce wondered. “His concentration must be-” He made a gesture.

“Oh, yeah. I let him win.” John chuckled.

Bruce remembered why he’d wanted to be alone with John in the first place, and felt like he’d swallowed razors. He’d tried holding it off for as possible, but he refused to stay a coward. ‘It’ was necessary. He tried to find his courage in the beer.

John observed the sudden alcohol consumption with amusement. “You’ll give yourself hiccups,” he warned, “buddy.”

“John, we need to talk.”

And there was no going back.

“Okay.” His attention soaked back up, John dropped the cards unceremoniously and emphasised his attention with a stare. “What’s wrong, buddy?”

“You know how,” Bruce started, swallowing through a dry, scratchy throat, “when you wanted me to help with Harley, help with talking to her, you asked me to be her?”

“Roleplaying?” John prompted, and smiled a sunny smile. “Yeah. Thanks for that, Bruce.” He winked. “It helped a lot.”

Bruce thought of the giggling he’d heard in her office and didn’t doubt it. He very nearly lost his nerve, but admonished himself, which snapped back his resolute nerve. He wouldn’t let himself be set back again. “Yeah, that’s the thing...”

John frowned. “Bruce?”

“I need help.” It came out a sort of strangled cough. At least fibres of his pride were still in tact. “With... Catwoman.”

John looked intrigued. “Finally making a move? Well, it’s about time! She was starting to hold on by the claws, Bruce!” He clapped once, and rocked on his chair, grinning too wide for his face. Something sparked in his eyes. Bruce couldn’t read it. “I thought she was nothing but a criminal, buddy?”

Bruce was not in the mood to talk in length about anything he’d said about Selina. “Well, I changed my mind,” he replied irritably. “Will you help me or not?”

John either didn’t notice his mood, or he ignored it. He leaned back in his chair and rocked precariously on its hind legs. “You want me to be her. Got it. I suppose I do owe you one for telling me about the card tactic.”

Bruce puddled in relief. “Okay.”

“So, what’s happening in this scenario?” John made a gesture with his arms like a rainbow. “Are you and the kitty on a date?”

“No,” Bruce said, after thinking. “I just... need to talk to her. Just talk. That’s all.”

John deflated a little. Bruce wondered if he’d already thought of things Selina would say. What _would_ Selina say? She seemed like the type of girl that would order expensive things at a restaurant, leaving him to assume she’d help pay, and go to the bathroom only to never come back. “Okay. I can do that. I think.”

“It’s fine if you don’t get her character right,” Bruce assured. “I just need to talk to her.”

John looked lost in thought for a while, but he finally adjusted his posture into something more sultry. “Hey, Bruce.” His impression of her voice was startlingly good – almost so good Bruce felt like rotating to scan the room for the real thing. Bruce was jarred.

He didn’t comment on it. He just wanted to get it over with. “Hey, Selina.” He took a deep breath, and looked at the table, away from John’s eyes; John’s everything. If he didn’t look at him, he could forget they were only roleplaying. He closed his eyes and imagined he and Catwoman were sat on a rooftop, inhaling Gotham’s homey, polluted air, both chilled through their Kevlar, and he could see her eyes, sparking with interest and feline curiosity. “I need to talk to you.”

“All good things, I hope.”

“I’ve had a lot of time to think,” Bruce started, feeling nauseous with adrenaline. “About... things.”

“Us?”

“No.”

Silence ensued. Bruce daren’t look up.

“Selina, I think I’m in love.” And it felt _good_ to finally say it. He felt no less nervous, but the acknowledgment of his buried affection was like removing an overgrown man from his back. He could flex his muscles in relief again. He wasn’t pinned by something he felt he would always bottle inside. It floated around them poignantly, with places to roam, places to be, released from the confines of his heart. “God, I think I’m sickeningly, completely, unconditionally, irrevocably in love.”

“With... me?” ‘Selina’s’ voice was tinged by confusion (or was that John’s confusion, peaking through the impression of her voice?).

And Bruce felt himself _grinning_. “No.” He could breathe again.

“Time out,” John protested. “What-”

“John, please,” Bruce implored, panic-stricken. “I’ll lose my nerve.”

John’s chest swelled with air. “Bruce...” Selina’s voice was back. “Aren’t you going to tell me her name?”

Bruce shook his head a little, but when he responded, his voice held no uncertainty. “It’s not a ‘her’,” he corrected, and another weight was plucked from his lungs. “I didn’t predict it, but... Selina, I think I’m in love with a man. Another man.” He paused, grasped by abrupt apprehension. “Is that wrong?”

“No, that’s-” Selina’s voice faltered. “Buddy...”

Bruce steeled himself. He steeled himself for the possibility of ruining the first steady thing he’d ensnared in his life. He steeled himself for a world without John in it. And he looked optimistically at a future with John in it, a John he could–

Well. There was no point even thinking about that until he knew what the reaction to his raw, scraped confession would be. Crushing a vision of what could have been would be more painful than keeping his mind blank during the opening of a permanent wound, like he kept it blank in the battlefield to concentrate on his instincts and his senses. Every instinct was telling him what he wanted, and that wasn’t to give up.

“I met him a year ago. It wasn’t love at first sight. I don’t believe in that. The best kind of romance novels are ones where the protagonists don’t meet in a flurry of tangled passion, webbed by the other’s impossible beauty. The feelings build up. And my feelings built up.” Bruce inhaled, and exhaled. He felt deprived of oxygen. “Alfred would scold me. He’d tell me I’m taking advantage of a sick man. Because he’s sick. I met him when he was sickest, inside an asylum, and I fell in love with him when he was in the world, exploring with endearing, juvenile awe.” He heard a sharp intake of breath. He was unsure if it belonged to him or the other breather in the room. “He treats me like I’ve never been treated, Selina. I’ve never had a person outside my small family care for me like he does. I mean, sure, he’s sick, so his unpredictability and his feelings are often something to be undesired, but he’s saved my life, and he’s flattered me, and him being sick is nothing that makes me love him less or more. It’s the natural personality that peaks through I see glimmers of. The way his laugh changes depending on his mood. His smell. Even his voice is intoxicating, because it’s the one thing I feel can bring a blanket of comfort. If I can hear his voice, he’s there.” He picked at the table. “I first realised when he told me he loves someone else. He still loves them, you know. He’s probably straight. Isn’t that predictable?” He scoffed a dry laugh. “I asked the question lightly. I didn’t hope for anything. But his answer made me feel sick. He does that a lot – induces nausea. I think I know what he means now, that love makes you feel like you have a disease. He makes me feel all clammy and erratic and feverish and sick. His smell makes me dizzy. Have you seen him in the rain? I have. I had to sit with him in the car while his scent mixed with rain water. His skin and his eyes are beautiful when they’re lustrous. Did you know that? I’ve seen it. And I told myself I wanted to grab him and ravage him to piss off his vexing crush lounging in the back seat, but I know better. I wanted to ravage him because he’s uniquely beautiful, perfections and imperfections combined. I wanted to ravage him because he knows my imperfections and he calls me his buddy anyway. Not many people have the stomach to handle my flaws. I brood, among other things. No one wants a sulky friend with a temper flaming downwards towards Hell. I can go on and on. I can go on about what I’ve fantasised, and what I want. I can write messy poetry about how much I love him, physically and emotionally and mentally, and thank Alfred mentally for my range of English classes. But none of that matters. I can ramble for hours and hours, but my desires aren’t important. He’s important. Being a part of his world is exciting and suffocating and I can’t leave it whole. I want to make him happy, but I can’t do that. Not the way he wants me to. Because he wants me to pretend to be his friend, only his friend, and I don’t think-”  
  
He’d looked up, and his breath was snatched with a fist of ice. Not for the first time, he lost eloquence. John was staring at him with a dumbstruck expression, one slashed eyebrow flung up, his mouth open.

Bruce swallowed. He tasted bile. His mouth felt like it had been scratched by sandpaper. The moisture had probably pooled to his palms, which he dug his nails into hard enough to leave bloody half-moon crescents.

“Erm, buddy,” John began slowly, thunderstruck. “Are you-” He paused, and his slender, spidery fingers caressed the back of his neck. Bruce feared it was a sign of discomfort. “Are you in love with me?”

He couldn’t go back. Bruce didn’t think he would if he had a chance, even if he had a gun against his temple and, analogy aside, dread was entwining in his stomach. “Seems like it,” he said.

John was silent. He looked utterly lost for words. Even his eyes were unreadable.

“You don’t have to say anything.” Bruce felt like he’d swallowed something very sharp. “This won’t change anything, I promise. Your comfort means more to me than-”

Just like in the cafe, the first time they’d roleplayed to discuss feelings, with John laying his feelings raw on the table, John shot across the table dividing them and fisted his fingers around Bruce’s expensive lapels. For the second time, Bruce was jarred by John’s hidden strength as he managed to pull Bruce, significantly larger and thicker with muscle mass, across the table. This time, nothing was exclaimed between them. No, it couldn’t have been, because their mouths would have swallowed any cadence attempted.

John’s lips were a lot softer than they looked, and up close John smelled even better. It was one of the things Bruce shamelessly loved most: his smell. It was unique and comforting, like the smell of homemade cooking. He hadn’t found such comfort in the smell of another since his parents had been alive.

John was kissing him. It registered slowly, and didn’t stop feeling surreal. He’d prepared so thoroughly for rejection he could have written a speech about the process. John was clumsy, but Bruce was okay with it, because he was too. They were unused to each other. They had never taken time to openly explore each other, because they’d never had the right.

Did they have the right now? The question made him feel as ready to combust as John’s truck.

The kiss ended too soon, so he chased his mouth for second helpings. John tolerated third helpings, and fourth, and fifth, but he drew a line in the sand on a sixth helping, his lips swollen and his eyes glossy, because he complained about feelings giving him indigestion.

“How long?” Bruce asked breathlessly. He wanted to ask a thousand questions, like what he was doing with Harley in her office, and if she’d shared beers with him in his shack, but some things were better left unsaid so they had no power to harm. He didn’t know if the answer would harm, but he’d rather not find out.

“Longer than the car ride, buddy,” John assured. Bruce was left to wonder. “What-” He trailed off, looking a little puzzled.

“What now?” Bruce suggested. “I don’t know. Harley can’t know.”

“I know that, buddy.” John sorted all the cards into a pile; they’d dishevelled them. He probably just wanted to do something with his hands. When he spoke next, he did so like a child about to curse near their parents. “Are we – you know-”

“If you want.” Bruce wanted it. He wanted it so badly it hurt. “If you can live with the secrecy.” When something contorted in John’s face, he added, “Temporary secrecy.”

“I want that kiss now.”

Smartly, Bruce put everything on the table onto the floor, and leaned over again. John met him in the middle. His hair was soft around his fingers, and John’s tongue was warm as it snaked skilfully into his mouth.

They were interrupted by Harley’s voice. She made no effort to come in, which Bruce considered a small justice. He could sort out his dishevelled appearance. When his lapels were in place, and his hair was straight, he caught John stroking the inside of his cheeks with his tongue.

“What are you doing?”

“Tasting you.”

And Bruce felt something, thick as cement, rush through him inelegantly like a wave. He circled the other man’s waist, and yanked him closer. He was allowed to do that now. The power was intoxicating. He kissed him stupid, thoroughly, lifting him up in his arms.

“You can taste me again tonight.”

It was the worst kind of promise to leave between them for the rest of the day. At one point, John was so rapt keeping eye contact with Bruce he tripped over and sprawled over Harley’s shoes. He got time-out.

But Bruce never left his promises unfulfilled. And that turned out to be just the way John liked it.

 


End file.
